Yemen The United Nations reveals the killing of 2,000 children recruited by the Houthis
In a new report, United Nations experts reported that nearly 2,000 children recruited by the Houthis in Yemen died on the battlefield between January 2020 and May 2021, and the Houthi group is still setting up camps and holding courses to encourage young people to fight.
Nearly 2,000 children recruited by the Houthis in Yemen died on the battlefield between January 2020 and May 2021, and the Houthi group is still setting up camps and holding courses to encourage young people to fight, according to United Nations experts in a new report.
The experts said in a report to the Security Council on Saturday that they investigated some summer camps in schools and a mosque where the Houthis spread their ideology with the aim of recruiting children fighting in the seven-year war against the internationally recognized Yemeni government, with the support of a Saudi-led coalition.
The four-member panel of experts reported that the children were instructed to chant the Houthi slogan, "Death to America, death to Israel, curse on the Jews, victory for Islam."
The experts added that “in one of the camps, children as young as 7 years old learn to clean weapons and avoid missiles.”
In the same context, the experts said they had documented 10 cases in which children were taken to fight after being told that they would enroll in cultural courses, and nine cases in which humanitarian aid was provided to families or refused “only on the basis of their children’s participation in the fighting, or to teachers on the basis of whether they were studying curricula.” Houthis,” and one case in which sexual violence was perpetrated against a child who had undergone military training.
The committee indicated that it had received a list of the names of 1,406 children recruited by the Houthis who died on the battlefield in 2020, and a list of the names of 562 children recruited by the rebels who were killed on the battlefield between January and May 2021.
The experts said: “They were between 10 and 17 years old, and a large number of them were killed in Amran, Dhamar, Hajjah, Hodeidah, Ibb, Saada and Sana’a.”
Yemen has been mired in civil war since 2014, after the Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa, and most of the northern part of the country, forcing the government to flee to the south and then to Saudi Arabia.
A Saudi-led coalition that included the UAE and was backed by the United States at the time entered the war months later, in 2015, seeking to restore the government to power.